San Diego Smash punctuate late-season surge with inaugural AVP League title

When the San Diego Smash required one pressure-packed sideout to win the title, Chase Budinger answered the call.

The championship of the inaugural AVP League came down to a “Golden Set” tiebreaker between the Smash and Dallas Dream on a balmy Sunday afternoon in Carson, California. Budinger and partner Miles Evans had seen a 14-10 comfort zone in a race to 15 evaporate against the Dream’s undefeated dynamic duo of Miles Partain and Andy Benesh when a stuff block by Andy and two kills in transition by Partain staved off three championship points.

Another “real point” by the Dream and it would be a brand new ballgame.

After a strategic timeout by the Smash, the tension was palpable as the 6-foot-9 Benesh ripped a topspin jump serve from the middle of the baseline. But Budinger stood strong while delivering a serviceable pass off his platform, and Evans, in system, launched a beautiful high-arching hand set to a prime hitting zone about three feet off the net and 10 feet inside the antenna.

A former contestant in the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, the 6-foot-7 Budinger lifted off the sand and chopped a spike across his body with a controlled swing, niftily cutting inside of Benesh’s huge block, and the ball bounced off the sand near the left sideline.

Sideout mission accomplished. Golden Set won 15-13. Cue the celebration and break out the bubbly, the Smash would wear the pro-wrestling-styled belts around their waists as AVP League champions.

Budinger, Evans, Geena Urango and Toni Rodriguez pulled off an improbable title run. Sitting eighth and dead last at 2-6 in the AVP League standings for the middle month of the regular season, the Smash qualified for the four-team playoffs as the No. 4 seed, sporting a break-even 8-8 record after rallying for 3-1 marks in each of the last two weeks.

Chase’s kill might have been the coup de grace, but the Smash’s women set the stage for that highlight-reel moment. The veteran Urango and her high-motor partner, Rodriguez, were first up against the Dream’s Hailey Harward and Kylie Deberg in the innovative Golden Set, in which pairs from both genders compete, and came out firing. They staked the men to a cozy 8-5 advantage.

Toni’s deep kill off a scramble situation put the Smash up 4-2 and her booming spike in transition built a 7-4 lead. With…